Benefits of Forfeiture

Asset forfeiture is beneficial for at least three reasons. First,
it is intended to reduce criminal activity by denying offenders the profits
from their crimes. Second, a byproduct of asset forfeiture is more drug
arrests. Third, yet perhaps most controversially, forfeiture helps
cash-strapped law enforcement agencies augment their discretionary budgets to
further target criminal activity.

Crime Reduction

Much of the language surrounding forfeiture is couched in
terms of removing the profit from criminal activity, but at its core, forfeiture's
objective is crime deterrence. Because incarceration (or the threat of such)
does not deter all offenders, forfeiture is intended to pick up where
traditional punishments leave off. It has been said that "[t]he criminal views
the prospect of a jail sentence as a calculated cost of generating revenue…"
and that "[r]ecidivism is encouraged because the subject has learned that crime
does pay."42

Unfortunately, not a single published study has linked
forfeiture activities to the prevalence of criminal activity. A team of
economists recently offered up a theoretical argument concerning the possible
deterrent effect of forfeiture, but they also argued that a mix of
sanctions, not just forfeiture, would be most ideal: "by employing a mix of
sanctions, with harm-based fines (or other punishment) plus confiscation of
illegal gain [i.e., forfeiture], courts will be able to get closer to efficient
deterrence than they can when constrained to use punishments in isolation."43

Despite the lack of evidence that forfeiture can reduce a
variety of crimes, there is some evidence that forfeiture can effectively
address a number of specific problems. This guide considers several such
problems in the "Problems for Which Forfeiture is a Remedy" section below.

More Drug Arrests

As is clear by now, there are financial incentives for
police agencies to pursue asset forfeiture. This raises a proverbial "chicken or
the egg" question: Do forfeiture laws increase enforcement activity, or does
enforcement activity increase the prospects for asset forfeiture? One study
found that state forfeiture laws are closely connected to drug arrests, and,
secondarily, to forfeiture. In other words, states with the most generous
forfeiture laws, those that return the greatest percentage of forfeiture
proceeds to police, saw the greatest arrest activity: "police focus relatively
more effort on drug control when they can enhance their budgets by retaining
seized assets."44
Controversially, this takes the focus from finding solutions to specific crime
problems to revenue generation. Yet it is difficult to fault police departments
for seeking revenue to support continued crime fighting.

Whether more drug arrests are desirable depends, of course,
on the particular drug-related problem. Careful analysis of a local drug
problem should be conducted before making this judgment. If, for example,
high-volume drug arrests overwhelm the courts and/or compromise public support
for law enforcement efforts, then more drug arrests (and, by extension,
forfeiture) may be undesirable.

Budget Boost

The obvious advantage of asset forfeiture is its potential
to boost an agency's bottom line. Although forfeiture can yield a profit,, it
can be sufficient for forfeiture to simply yield enough proceeds to offset the
costs of drug enforcement, such as the operation of a multijurisdictional drug
task force. Researchers have found, indeed, that forfeiture can assist agencies
by augmenting their discretionary budgets.45